With Facebook’s developer conference F8 about to start, details of its messenger app were accidentally leaked. We can already confirm that it will be announcing a new-look Messenger app for users which will be end-to-end encrypted by default.
Messenger was expected to be a big part of the F8 keynote, and somehow the news about its new features and a refreshed, lighter platform got accidentally leaked, not long before the F8 keynote was supposed to take place.
This year’s F8 is significant for Mark Zuckerberg and his company, especially after the data mishap saga not coming to an end. Also, the fact that WhatsApp and Instagram has gone through backroom changes, which is likely to put the social networking giant in the driver’s seat.
The new version of Messenger, the regular app has been redesigned, which puts it at less than 30MB in size. The rebuilding has been done with the help of Project LightSpeed, which, according to Facebook will help Messenger launch in two seconds. There’s no launch timeframe as of now, but we’re hopeful it released sometime this year.
In addition to this, Messenger will soon get end-to-end encryption, borrowing its back-end technology from WhatsApp, ensuring messages between users remain private and not readable for third-party users.
Facebook is also going to allow its users on Messenger to share and watch videos with friends, offering a convergent experience with its other platforms in the future. This will be further enhanced with the introduction of the digital living room, where the user will only be able to see content from people they’re regularly in touch with.
And finally, Messenger will be launched as a desktop app for Windows as well as MacOS. This will work different from the WhatsApp for Web version, which only mirrors your account from the phone and doesn’t let you operate it separately. The desktop app for Messenger is likely to allow video chats, and a slew of features which Facebook could add in the course of time.
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